After convincing the customs officers that I wasn't a terrorist and that I wasn't smuggling anything other than a guitar and 4 pounds of Columbian cocaine in my guitar case, I walked out the main terminal exit to about 200 men holding signs, looking at me and yelling. Awkward. It was a little bit like being on the red carpet. I strutted my stuff down the runway. Stop. Turn. Stop. Turn. Sashay. Looks like all those America's Next Top Model reruns (the one's I'm constantly forced to watch at home) finally paid off! Not really. I'm sure I looked like the biggest deer in headlights. Among all the men in the crowd, I finally spotted a man jumping up and down in the back, waving a sign that said ThoughWorks on it. We were getting somewhere. He walked us over to the parking lot and left us there while he fetched the car. The smell here is different, but not necessarily bad. The air is filled with exhaust from all the cars, but often you smell a mix of spice, perfume, and sewage. I'm not being facetious, though. The smell actually brought back very fond memories of Kazan', a bustling, growing city, always pulsating with noise and activity. There is something literally and figuratively very raw about the smells in these cities. It makes them feel much more organic and alive.
The nice man (whose name, unfortunately, I cannot remember, nor could I say correctly) drove us for about an hour to the Diamond District. This is where I'll be staying throughout my tenure in Bangalore. He dropped us off and another gentleman helped me to my room. For all intents and purposes, I have a great apartment. I was struck by how large it is. There are three of us living there, each with our own room. The apartment buildings are known as "blocks", which I find hilarious. I'm currently serving 20 to life on H-Block 62 with a member of the Chinese Triad crime syndicate known as "Bob" and an Indian guy I haven't met yet. I was the last to arrive, so I dropped my stuff in the one remaining room, and after turning on the air-conditioner, the fan, the mosquito lamp and the mosquito repellant air-freshener thing, I finally managed to find a bed. I needed it.
I woke up this morning a little hesitant I must admit. I had really received no direction at all and had no way of contacting anyone. I kind of just started going about my normal day. Got out of bed. Took a shower. Unpacked some things. Made some toast. Boiled water for tea. I was sitting on the couch in silence and decided to flip on the TV. A couple preliminary notions about TV in India. I didn't expect there to be so much English. I was watching all the same commercials I see in the States, just with Indian folks talking about how this Ponds product is so great for moisturizing, or why Yahoo is such a great search engine. Bollywood definitely seems to have made it's mark. The music, dancing, traditional dress, etc. is everywhere. I managed to find an English-speaking news broadcast. The journalist was reporting from the streets of Bangalore about potential riots this afternoon. I kind of did a double take when I heard this. Wait, wah? So apparently there's this 500 year old land dispute between some Muslims and some Hindis and today a court will rule (I'm assuming after 500 years of back and forth) on what should be built there, a temple or a mosque. Depending on how the ruling goes (I'm not really sure which way I'm supposed to want it to go), some folks could be pretty upset. I didn't think much about it, until they said that all businesses, universities and schools had been closed. Our team has been told to stay off the streets the remainder of the evening. Apparently it's the real deal. Although, at lunch today one of my trainers was telling me that this kind of thing really wasn't a big deal for the younger generations. I suppose that remains to be seen.
I made my way over to the ThoughtWorks office around eleven, picked up some adapters, met some folks. The office was humming. Like most ThoughtWorks offices and especially delivery sites, you walk through the doors into a bee hive. Many people buzzing around a central hub, each with their own role, working diligently, but always with the well being of the hive in mind. There are no walls. Only tables, chairs, laptops, phones and dozens of city clocks, all in one large, central room. If you don't think osmotic learning is a real thing, work in a place like this for a year. I settled into my honeycomb, plugged in, sat down, and was immediately invited to leave for lunch. Long day. We walked out to the street and one of my trainers asked me (with a grin), "You ever ride a rickshaw before?" "Do the ones near Wrigley Field count?" "No." And no, they don't. We paid a man 43 rupees to drive us to a restaurant not far from the office. He probably deserved much more. There are no traffic laws in India. It's basically every motorcyclist, rickshaw driver, scooter guy, semi-truck driver, man, woman, child and pedestrian for himself. I've decided to characterize what you experience riding here (not driving. I don't plan on driving here. I would die. And that's coming from someone who's been driving in Chicago for 4 years) as poorly-organized chaos. Not quite complete chaos, but close. The honking. So much honking. People use their horns all the time and it's not like in the US when you use your horn all the time because you are angry. The Indians are actually using their horns for a purpose closer to what they were actually designed for: to let others on the road know where you are. When 50 million people are crossing lanes and passing you at any given moment, a few taps on the horn every three or four seconds can't necessarily be a bad thing. Riding along I saw alot. There were definitely cows just walking along the busy roads. People were everywhere. Thousands of people were everywhere. There are just a ton of people everywhere in this place. We stopped off at a local restaurant. This next part might seem totally cliche, so the only reason I'm writing it is because it actually happened and I think I may have been the only one who noticed. We got out of the rickshaw, paid the man and walked up the crumbling sidewalk to the restaurant entrance. Just outside the entrance, I saw a dead cat. It was lying there, dead. I didn't really think much about it until I walked out of the restaurant and the dead cat was no longer there. Now I'm not saying the cat was used as part of our meal. I'm just saying that the cat was used as part of our meal. And it was nice and spicy. Meow.
